Amnesia: BCQC May Open Afternoon Quiz

Set and Conducted by Niranjan Pedanekar.

Results (43 questions):
1st: Harish Kumar, Ramanand, Manish (draft) [D]: 70 pts
2nd: Meghashyam, Maitreyi, Nandan Gokhale(draft) [E]: 60 pts
Jt. 3rd: Suvajit C, Aniket, Rohan Chokkar (draft) [A]: 45 pts
Jt. 3rd: Yash M, Vinay, C V R Sastry (draft) [B]: 45 pts
Jt. 3rd: Suraj, Yasho T, (draft), Abhinav [C]: 45 pts
Jt. 3rd: Aditya, Kaustubh, Samit [F] (draft): 45 pts

Elims: highest: Aniket+Suvajit (21/35); cutoff: 11
Participating Teams: about 35

Conducted with customary elan by Niranjan, this was however the most restrained set of questions I've seen from him. Earlier efforts have been full of maze-like framing & intricate connects, but clearly, recent trends have been towards simpler presentation (most notably seen in last year's visuals quiz) and less cognitive overload.

The elims were good, though some questions perhaps needed some more information to crack. The set was undeniably tough, but workable. Over the years, Niranjan's prelims have usually been superlative, combining interest & creativity in equal measure, but this one was a couple of carats short of his usual top tier.

In comparison, the finals were much better: he opened with a couple of very nicely made questions. There were fewer questions this time, and a lot more time to think, which was very much appreciated by this reviewer. There were the usual questions bordering on "eh?" but there was a conscious effort to steer clear of the usual areas. Consequently, there were more questions on unexplored Indian topics & even mutilated fauna, and very few on pet topics such as films & sport.

As the scores show, there seemed to be something for every team. Going into the last 13 questions, any of the teams could have taken top spot. We were lucky for a couple of things to go in our favour. We had managed only 3 out of the first 30, and managed to get 4 in the last 13. Even at the end, we didn't know we had won, but it was clear it had been very tight.

Played in excellent spirit by all teams and with great interest from the audience, this was a fine quiz.

Thanks to Landmark (Pune) and Blaft Publications for co-sponsoring prizes, and Persistent Systems for allowing use of their splendid auditorium

BCQC May Open Quizzes

The BCQC presents two open quizzes in May. Here are the details:

Administrivia

Date: 17th May (Sunday)

Venue: Dewang Mehta Auditorium, Persistent Systems Ltd., Senapati Bapat Road, Pune
(The nearest landmarks: The location is behind Domino's Pizza, near the new ICC Towers complex in which are situated shops such as Mainland China. The place is about 2 km from Pune University. This is a wikimapia map to the location.)

Contact: Phone: Ramanand (97642 58560), Aditya (98811 01291), Email: contact(at)bcqc(dot)org

'How to's: Upto two members per team; no prior registration needed; no entry fees

Prizes

(the same for each quiz)
Prizes for each finalist, for the Best College Team, the Best School Team, and the Best Newbie Team.
Prizes are co-sponsored by Landmark (Pune), Blaft Publications (Chennai), and the BCQC.

Morning Quiz: The 'Tyson-Gibran' Quiz

Quizmasters: Suraj Menon, Yash Tamaskar
Timings: 9:45 am to 12:45 pm (report by 9:30 am)
Flavour: General
What to expect: A lot more than ear-lickin' sportsmen/philosophers/second-rung Bollywood villains.

Afternoon Quiz: 'Amnesia'

Quizmaster: Niranjan Pedanekar
Timings: 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm (report by 2:15 pm)
Flavour: General
What to expect: Creative quizzing with a lateral thinking twist.(See past 'Amnesia' reports here)

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A complete list of BC Opens

May Open Morning Quiz - "Dekho Magar Pyaar Se"

Date: May 4, 2008
Set and Conducted by Niranjan Pedanekar

Results (elims scores in bracket):
1st: Harish + Ramanand (D): 215 [25.5]
2nd: Akhil + Apurva (C) : 210 [20.5]
Jt. 3rd: Salil + Yasho (B) : 160 [24]
Jt. 4rd: Aditya Gadre + Kaustubh (E) :160 [21]
5th: Abhishek + S. Ashwin (F) : 145 [19.5]
6th: Aniket + Manish Manke (A): 105 [20]

Best school team: Pushkar Pandit and Kunal Kalkundri; Best college team not in final: Rohan and Gaurav Singh, Best newbies: Harshal Modi and Mahip Vyas

Scorer: Aadinath Harihar

Report

This report is easy to describe: the quiz was brilliant :-). After having inflicted brain-churning quizzes in the last couple of years, Niranjan chose to rebel against the monsters he had unleashed, as well as the verbose laziness of the rest of us. He presented a quiz whose underlying theme was 'pithiness' which showed that questions can be set with an economy of expression by exploiting the proverbial '1 pic == 1000 words. In doing so, he has again pushed the boundaries of what we can do in setting a quiz. At the same time he was also able to show us what we can do 'at a quiz' - in presentation, in building atmosphere, in panache and chutzpah (Yiddish for ... :-))

The quiz began with a Larry Lessig/Dick Hardt style presentation which so caught everyone's fancy that there was actually an encore demanded and had. The elims set the standard with some excellent questions.

Most felt that the finals were a lot less mentally taxing than previous quizzes, which seemed to naturally flow from the theme of the quiz. There were 4 regular rounds and 4 'special rounds'. Though interesting, I felt some of them had too many questions. Another observation was that since we spent less time in parsing each question, we had a little more time to ponder the possible answers.

As ever, Niranjan's choosing of question elements was almost always excellent. While setting a question, there are several different ways of presenting it. This is especially so in a visuals only quiz, where one would have been faced with questions such as what to show, whether there are enough hints within the images (remember: want to have as few words in the question as possible), whether this is a good enough question, and so on. For me, observing these possible choices was the best part of the quiz. For instance, the question about the index from a particular book - I don't know if other pages would have been as revealing as that particular page.

Lest I wax too eloquent, here are some minor flaws: the quiz was at least 30 minutes too long. There were quite a few Rosa Park-ers (perhaps our new term for 'sitters' ;-)) which, much to the chagrin of Teams F & E, kept coming to us. (Team F were perhaps so distraught that when presented with their own sitter, they chose to slip rather inconveniently :-).)

Further on the plus side, the proceedings on stage were very peaceful and conducive to quiet contemplation of quizzes. We had a large turnout of school quizzers this time. Harish and I finally won (together, that is) a quiz of Niranjan's, having come close twice before. Akhil and Apurva, fine but underrated quizzers, gave us a good fright with their late surge.

It was an enjoyable way to spend a Sunday morning.

Amnesia - September 2007 BC Open General Quiz - Report

Date: 16 September, 2007
Venue: Dewang Mehta Auditorium, PSPL

Open Quiz - "Amnesia"
Set and Conducted by: Niranjan Pedanekar
Theme: General

Quiz Final Results
(~50 seamless IR)
cutoff: 20.5/45 1st: Meghashyam Shirodkar + Samrat Sengupta (B) - 100
2nd: B.V.Harish Kumar + J. Ramanand (C) - 85
3rd: Avinash Mudaliar + Harikrishnan (F) - 75
4th: Sudarshan Purohit + Abhishek Nagaraj (E) - 60
5th: Anand Sivashankar + Vibhendu Tiwari (D) - 55
6th: Kaustubh Bhat + Aditya Gadre (A) - 20

Best School teams: Nandan Gokhale + Samit, Satyavrat Wagle + Rohit Sahasrabuddhe
Best College teams: Aditya Gadre+Kaustubh Bhat, Yasho Tamaskar+Aniket Khasgiwale
Best Newbies: Arnab + Ramanathan

Notes

• Undoubtedly, the best quiz of the year (even though we have had many good quizzes this year). Perhaps I should say "so far" :-)
• Terrific elims, one of the best I have ever taken. Almost every question seemed to me to be genuinely workable or at least v. interesting. Only, was too long, thus causing a cascading effect of longer correction and "moderation" and so on.
• Excellent finals questions - many people would have experienced Niranjan's style of questions for the first time: requiring a heavy dose of lateral thinking, a variety of elements per question, big and structure-intensive questions. I think most of them warmed to it.
• Some questions were, as happens each time with Niranjan, bordered on the strange ("dard-e-disco" ;-)). Some could have had a few more clues, but then we'd have been there into the wee hours. Some of the split decisions could have been more consistent.
• Superb performance by Meghashyam, with able support from Samrat. This team had, at the beginning, admitted to not being historically good at connects, Niranjan-style. But if this performance is anything to go by, they have nothing to fear here. Some of the answers were wonderfully intuitive.
• Perhaps one aspect to a good quiz is how well it can inspire its participants to respond - on that count, we had some very fine answering by all teams, including the rookies Aditya and Kaustubh, making their BCQC Open debut. The audience too was in fine fettle cracking some tough nuts that none on stage could even unwrap.

Announcement - Next BC Quizzes

The Boat Club Quiz Club is organising two quizzes on Sunday, 16th Sep 2007. Entry is free.

Venue: Dewang Mehta auditorium, Persistent Systems Pvt. Ltd., Senapati Bapat Road, Pune-16 (see this link for directions)

Details:

Quiz 1: "Trivianomics 2007" - Open Business Quiz
Time: 9.30 am to 12.30 pm; reporting at 9.15 am
Teams of 2, 6 teams in the final.
QM: B.V. Harishkumar
No prior registration.
Certificates and prizes for all finalists, as well as audience prizes.

Quiz 2: "Amnesia 2007 - Surviving Factual Harassment"
BCQC September Open General Quiz
Time: 2 pm to 7 pm, reporting at 1:30 pm
Teams of 2, 6 teams in the final.
QM: Niranjan Pedanekar
No prior registration needed.
Open to all.
Prizes for all finalists; Prizes for best all-school, all-college, and newbie teams as well as for audience

All prizes sponsored by Landmark, Pune

Special Prizes:
The 'HEISENBERG' Award
for the determined efforts to be uncertain regarding the answer

The 'MARADONA-HAJMOLA' Award
for impeccable passing ability

The 'X-FILES' Award
for providing vague answers that could only be explained through the paranormal

The 'RGV ki AAG' Award
for confusing creativity & creating confusion

The 'ANU MALIK' Award
for gross manipulation of available resources

The 'UPA' Award
for consuming exorbitant time in taking a 'trivial' decision

Contact:
Email: contact (at) bcqc (dot) org

Keep visiting http://bcqc.org for updates and online quizzes

Amnesia 2006 - May Open Quiz - Report and Results

Amnesia 2006 - May Open Quiz

Date: 14 May, 2006
Set and Conducted: Niranjan Pedanekar

Quiz Final Results - 55 questions

1st: Shamanth Rao and Kunal Sawardekar (22)
2nd: B.V.Harishkumar & J. Ramanand (19)
3rd: Samrat Sengupta & Sudarshan Purohit (18)
4th: Anand Sivashankar & Vibhendu Tiwari (12)
Jt. 5th: Gaurav Sabnis & Sarika Chuni (7)
Jt. 5th: Rishi Iyengar & Rohan Morarka(7)

Quiz Elim Results

Cutoff: 18/35
1st: B.V.Harishkumar & J. Ramanand (23)
2nd: Samrat & Sudarshan (20.5)
3rd: Gaurav & Sarika(19)
4th: Kunal and Shamanth, Rishi & Rohan, Anand Sivashankar & Vibhendu Tiwari (all 18)

Report

* Amnesia 2006 was Niranjan's 1st quiz in 5 years after the now-defunct series of Mensa quizzes which were part of local folklore. The usual Niranjan constructs of lateral connects, 10 feet deep entertainment and sci-tech questions, the long questions et al were back :-)
* There were a few questions that participants and audience found vague that the quiz creator later agreed with. But there were several compensating questions that were brilliantly set, IMO. A lot of new topics or refreshing takes on old topics were seen. The level of acceptance or dislike on some of the offbeat questions will be a subjective emotion - overall, I was very entranced by the questions (as usual :-))
* Also felt that the participants and even audience members responded well to the questions - some very good attempts, many successful, were heard. Personal favourites among questions were: (being careful about not giving them away for those who will read them later) the grey-blue boxes with red lines and a tree, the 4 geographical locations, mutation-self-selection-veracity, ali-gogh-reagan connect, 4 military guys connect etc.
* There were a few questions that were too easy, some that were good but repeated without the knowledge of the setter or were simply a little to "iffy" (pun intended ;-)). Most common criticism was the length of questions, though, I personally didn't have a problem except for about 10% of the questions.
* Response was a little disappointing, I thought. Though the good old Mensa flavour was revived by the presence of Niranjan's wife who however didn't pick up her traditional duties as a scorer this time.
* The competition was fierce, with the winners being decided only on the 2nd last question, until which team any of the top 3 could have picked up the top spot. Kunal and Shamanth have added another feather in their caps-which-now-looks-like-a-strange-bird. Since these series of quizzes are the only ones that (even) I allow myself to be a little immodest about, on behalf of the likes of George, Harish, Sujay and me, I'd like to welcome you to the club ;-)
* Finals Questions are unlikely to be available soon because the ppt is very large and some alternate form of dissemination will be required.

I think those who don't have a history of being Niranjan-quiz-philes should comment :-) (please point out omissions and errors in this post)